How Leaders Learn
"How Leaders Learn" by David Novak is a great book for active learners. It has three chapters: "Learn from", "Learn to", and "Learn by".
Active learners are like artists—constantly refining, adapting, and evolving. They approach life as an masterpiece-in-progress, understanding that each new insight adds depth and clarity to the bigger picture. The book encourages active learning and defines it as a mindset - a daily discipline of seeking out knowledge from people, experience, and failures, staying open to feedback, new perspectives, and uncomfortable truths, and taking actions to test ideas, adapting and refining.
An active learner is somebody who seeks out ideas and insights and then pairs them with action and execution. They learn with purpose. The result is greater possibilities-for them and the people around them.
It's as Eric Hoffer, the American philosopher, wrote in Reflections on the Human Condition: "In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future." They can't wait to discover the next idea, and the next, and the next, because behind every idea is a world of possibility and a brighter future.
Warren Buffett once told me what he looks for in the companies he acquires. He said, "I'm looking to buy companies that are run by painters." When I asked for an explanation, he said, "Most great artists have a hard time letting go of their paintings. They're in love with the painting. They are constantly adding a dab of color here, a little more texture there. I'm looking for the boss who is always tweaking their company, constantly trying to make it better. No matter how successful they may have already been, what they still see is a masterpiece-in-progress." He calls Berkshire Hathaway a museum for these masterpieces, but he expects the people who run them to keep making progress, to keep changing and expanding.
This book covers a lot of good practices, some of which I learned through experience and have been implementing in daily life, but I've never clearly summarized them in words like this author does (e.g., learn from failure and success, learn to ask better questions, learn to develop pattern thinking, learn to reflect, learn by tackling problems, etc); some are common sense to people but not easy to follow (e.g. learn to see the world the way it really is, learn to make and check your own judgments, learn by being your best self, learn by seeking new challenges, learn by making everyone count, learn by recognizing on purpose, etc); others are new ideas and wise advice to me that are incredibly enlightening (e.g., learn from new environment, learn to trust in positive intentions, learn to be humble and confident, learn by simplying, learn by teaching, etc).
My Learnings:
I carry good values and get rid of bad values from my upbringings and move on, but never go back and think about weakness and blind spots that were developed implictly.
Our upbringings shape us-the good and bad experiences, the normal experiences of our day-to-day lives. When you choose to learn from your upbringing, you learn who you are, your strengths and weaknesses, your unique perspective, and your blind spots.
I'm the type of person who stick to one thing or one job, do the best, and get the most learnings from it - greedy but probably not the most efficient approach. So this is the top one advice for me: "Not moving means not growing" and "Choose environment wisely and don't stand still".
New environments bring uncertainty and risk, two things humans really don't like. The brain weighs threats of loss heavier than it does opportunities for gain. Whether it's a move to a new city or a move to a new company, we don't know the people or the culture and we don't know if we'll succeed when we get there. The brain tells us it's best if we just stay where we are, in our more certain, less risky, known environment. But that's not always the right choice. Josh Waitzkin, child chess prodigy, subject of the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, and later a tai chi world champion, wrote in The Art of Learning, "Growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.
However, not every new environment is good for you, it requires some luck and judgment.
When looking at a new environment, evaluate it for these four sources of learning:
- New knowledge, skills, or systems
- New ideas and innovative thinking
- New people and their perspectives and opinions
- New influences that lead to personal growth
Some new environments aren't going to advance your learning; they might even slow you down.
First, make sure the new environment will offer opportunities to learn and grow in any area that's important to you right now, like I did. This is especially true when you have an ambition but aren't sure how to get there.
As important as this work is, the next important step is to insert ourselves in an environment filled with people who routinely do what we're struggling to imagine." This is the whole point of choosing a new environment.
Second, choose an environment that's suited to you. Understanding your personal ideal environment is an important aspect of self-awareness.
Third, choose an environment that will exert the right influences on you, so that you're not only learning new skills, new knowledge, and new ideas, but also absorbing better collaboration, better leadership, better self-management, or whatever area of personal growth you think you need to work on.
It's not only about growth, new environment can shape a person.
Our social and cultural environments have a huge impact on our thinking and behavior. In Infuencer, psychologist Joseph Grenny and his coauthors explain that if you want to change behavior, you have to make changes to the social and structural environment. In Atomic Habits, James Clear argues that our environments usually matter more than our motivation when it comes to building new habits: "Especially over a long time period, your personal characteristics tend to get overpowered by your environment."
You can either fight that truth or leverage it to learn more and grow more. Eric Gleacher recognized the power of environment and how it could not only offer new skills but also shape the person he would become at a surprisingly young age.
Have a look at what a getting-things-done talent looks like and fill the gap. Although people all succeed in different ways and no one's success is replicable, becoming a 'working genius' is at least a good option to start.
Invention: creating novel ideas or solutions
Discernment: evaluating and analyzing ideas and situations
Galvanizing: organizing and inspiring others to take action
Enablement: providing encouragement and assistance
Tenacity: pushing projects to completion
If you're wondering who you should turn to, always start with people who have applied their ideas in the real world and can prove that they work.
Next, ask, Will they actually fill my gaps, or will they hold back their best ideas or try to elevate their ego by making what they know seem complex and hard to understand? Will they make their knowledge simple and clear? Essentially, you're asking, Is this person an active learner? Because active learners love helping people fill their gaps.
A final tip: if you want people to share their know-how with you, you need to spread know-how. You need to be willing to share with them, too.
Human has instinct to avoid social pain or negative truth about themselves, when someone tells a less positive truth, we need to fight our instincts and always listen.
When somebody cares enough and is brave enough to tell you the truth, your best course of action is to fight your instincts to dismiss it or hide from it. Overcome your brain's biological drive to protect you. Shut down the voice in your head telling you they're wrong. Don't run out of the room. Take some deep calming breaths (that really works), remind yourself that this person probably has a good reason for bringing the truth to your attention, and listen.
Active learners work through this set of mental gymnastics every day. They work on their humility and maintaining an open mind (more on this in part two because they see the value truth-tellers bring.
Pursue the truth of the world, don't be delusional. Although 'we see the world as we are, not as it is' (Adaptation of Anaïs Nin's famous quote), we at least should be aware of this.
Andy Pearson: "Learn to see the world the way it really is, not how you wish it to be."
Darrow: "Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails."
In their book Decisive, Chip Heath and Dan Heath explained that a sound decision-making process is more important than data and analysis, because no matter what, that data or our analysis of it is often flawed. We interpret it based on what we wish or what we assume or what we think, not what is.
Good process can lead to better analysis, they explained, but analysis without good process won't produce the best learning. You need both to orient yourself to reality.
When you see the world the way it really is, the right action becomes very clear.
One of the best ways to be a better critical thinker is to make sure that your information is as close to the source as possible. If you don't go to the source yourself, you might be letting one perception after another influence what you end up hearing or learning. You won't know if you're seeing reality.
When you're trying to see the world the way it really is, it's important to not be blinded by good news, something a good process can help you overcome.
A great way to stay grounded is to not only chase the truth but also deal in it. Active learners know the value of being honest and transparent. They tell it like it is, because they know when they do, there's a greater chance others will, too.
I love pattern thinking and I seek out actively, but I still limit myself by a passive pursue of richer life experience.
To prepare to make that leap, active learners expose themselves to as many patterns from as many disciplines as they can. Being curious about the world around us in the hope that we'll discover a new way of thinking about a problem or a new way of seeing an opportunity is core to active learning. Active learners read, listen, travel, try new things, explore hobbies and interests. They explore trends and insights from different disciplines, industries, cultures. Then they apply what they've absorbed to problems or goals. Those habits have helped me come up with some of my most successful ideas.
You might think of a pattern-thinking moment as an aha moment or a stroke of inspiration, but active learners don't wait for the moment to hit them; they work to find it.
Peter Georgescu, chairman emeritus of advertising giant Young & Rubicam and author of The Source of Success, said of pattern thinking, "A creative solution is a leap, and that leap is supported and fed and nurtured by experiences in life. The richer your life experience is, the more creative you'll become."
About reflection and thinking, the book elaborates two modes: focus mode and diffese mode. It resonates with me as I do see the benefits of switching between data science work during the day time and freestyle dancing in the evening in terms of developing creative ideas and unstuck myself from difficult problems.
In her talk, she described two modes of thinking: focus mode and diffuse mode. Focus mode is exactly what it sounds like. It's how we think when we're trying to accomplish a task or memorize something. Our thinking is usually confined to neural paths we've already created. Diffuse mode is a more "relaxed set of neural states" that allows our thinking to take off, range widely, and process or even create new ideas. When we are learning, we need both. And when we feel stuck in our thinking, unable to understand a concept, unable to unravel a challenge, we especially need the diffuse mode.
A combination of confidence and humility is a good characteristic. I've never thought about them deeply as a combo, that's why I've never found the sweet spot.
Confidence is important because nobody will follow you unless they believe you know where you're going and you'll find a way to get there. If that confidence isn't tempered by humility, though, it becomes arrogance.
Humility is just the recognition that you can't do it by yourself whatever "it" is-either because you simply can't, because you don't know enough, or because it won't be as fun or fulfilling if you go it alone.
Confidence is simply the expectation that you'll find a way to win-somehow.
People have good side and bad side. If you believe in their good side, they do so. From another perspective, it's often not their fault if they choose to express the bad side.
In any relationship, business or personal, somebody has to trust more or trust first to break inertia and build up positive momentum.
As important as it is for us to trust in positive intentions, if we want people to trust in ours, we need to behave accordingly. We need to build a well of trust to draw on.
We're all human; we're all going to lose our tempers or handle a delicate situation poorly or not show as much compassion as we should or make a poor judgment call. When we're on the receiving end, if we can take a breath, find a little empathy, and trust that the other person has good intentions that didn't pan out, we can avoid a total breakdown in the flow of ideas and learning and collaboration.
I read a striking definition of trust recently: "Trust is a relationship of reliance." Aren't we all reliant on each other if we want to learn, grow, and expand our possibilities? We can choose to support that relationship or tear it down. If we choose the second option, we're only limiting ourselves. If we choose the first, the possibilities are infinite.
This is from my experience: I only think hard, struggle and learn, when I'm dealing with my own unique life path, I don't take time to think when I follow other's path or live to other's expectation.
You may know the quote often attributed to Oscar Wilde: "Be yourself; everyone else is taken." (What he actually wrote is more cynical: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." Maybe because of my background and the potential prejudgments that came with it, I've spent most of my life working hard to just be me to understand who that person is, the contributions I have to offer, what I believe, and my purpose and passions. If I hadn't followed this path, I would have missed out on so much learning.
Active learners know that it's hard to learn when your mental energy is focused on trying to be somebody other than yourself. Instead of being open and curious, you'll be defensive. You'll be putting up barriers and withholding your brilliance. And then the people around you will do the same. Most of us can sense when people aren't being authentic, and it makes us trust them less.
Active learners like Marvin pursue authenticity by recognizing their unique value and talents, figuring out what matters to them and why, and then leveraging it to have a positive impact.
It's all about bringing who you are to the moment so that you're comfortable and open-minded enough to learn important lessons and ideas as they arise.
Everyone knows we need do the right things, but when it comes difficult situations, would you like to prioritize it above all else?
This is vital, because over time, depending on environments and circumstances and your own choices, your sense of right and wrong can suffer from stepwise degradation. You stray over the line, stray a bit further the next time, justifying one bad action after another. Stray too far over the line and you can lose sight of it entirely. Eventually, you lose the ability to know what doing the right thing looks like.
The best thing that happens when we do the right thing is that we feel good about our choices and the impact we're having on the world, and that inspires us to keep doing the right thing. Values aren't some thing you write down on a piece of paper and then put in a drawer or hang on the wall. Values are something you use to take good action. It isn't always the easy choice, but it's always the best choice and the one that helps you learn the most powerful lessons.
Input and output are different things. We collect information by inputing knowledge from outside, and we make sense of those knowledge by neural-networking it within our brain and outputing it in a little different way which requires our logical, critical, and creative thinkings.
Two things happen in the brain that help us "learn what we know." One is that we believe ideas more when we share them with others verbally, especially if we're trying to convince others that they're true. Psychologists call it the "saying is believing effect." Want to convince yourself to make time to exercise three times a week? Try convincing somebody else that they could fit a simple exercise regimen into their schedule. Another is that speaking (and writing) brings a different part of our brain into play than just thinking, which changes how we think about an idea. It's one reason that we can struggle and struggle to come up with a solution to a problem, but almost as soon as we explain the problem to another person out loud, a good solution pops into our head. Talking it out forces us to slow down, zoom out (simplify), and order our thoughts.
Sometimes, it's audience's engagement and support force us further along the learning journey.
I learned things I didn't know, and I learned what I already knew, as Timo put it, as I analyzed leadership, considered it from different angles, and expanded or supported my ideas. Active learners use this process to codify their ideas into something digestible and easily shared. When you codify it, you can scale it.
Teaching well also forces you to stay on top of your game, to continually look for new material to keep your ideas current and relevant. And it forces you to learn good storytelling, an invaluable skill. Stories are stickier than almost any other kind of information. If you want an idea to stay with people, you better be able to convey it in a relevant, compelling story with emotion and tension.
Many know "people go first", few know how to do it. If you want them to care about what you care about, you need to care about them first.
Active learners understand that people-not knowledge or results-should be the priority. How we support people, how we show our gratitude for them, how we show our interest or concern for them has a much greater impact, especially over time, than the latest quarterly earnings or the latest market rankings. I've said it before: I really like to win. But you don't win for long if the people who make the winning possible don't know how much they count.
I have always admired Geoff Colvin, senior editor-at-large of Fortune magazine and author of books like Talent Is Overrated and Humans Are Underrated. When he joined me on my podcast, he described the kinds of high-value work that only humans can do and that technology or AI can't: empathy, collaboration, and the insights or learning we generate along the way.